Could Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson be the hardest working man in show business?

The wrestler-turned-actor has already toplined two 2013 releases and has three more to go, including “The Fast and the Furious 6” on May 24 and the heist drama “Empire State” in the fall.

“I don’t worry about overexposure,” says Johnson, who spent his high-school years living in Bethlehem. “You can’t operate that way. I go in and think about doing quality work and trying to put the best movies out there. I have four or five movies this year so it’s like a big Rock buffet.”

Of all his recent flicks, Johnson is arguably the most jazzed about Michael Bay’s “Pain & Gain,” the true-life saga of a trio of Miami bodybuilders (Johnson, Mark Wahlberg, Anthony Mackie) who try their hands at kidnapping with disastrous results.

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“This was a really defining role for me and a really defining movie,” says the actor. “I’m glad that Michael brought me the project and this role very simply because it was such a departure from anything that I’d done in my career over the last 13 years.

“For me, I was waiting for a role like this that had this type of complexity, and all these types of layers. I’ve never played a character before that was this vulnerable and this easily influenced.

“He goes from trying to find his salvation in Jesus to sniffing cocaine off a woman’s backside to grilling the body parts (of murder victims). It was a great challenge as an actor.”

Johnson, who was living in Miami back in the mid-90s when the crimes took place, remembers reading about the Sun Gym Gang, a cadre of body-builders led by Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) and Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie) who kidnapped three victims, killing and dismembering two of them.

“I’ve lived (in Miami) for over 20 years, and during the time of the trial, (the murders) rocked the city,” recalls Johnson, who plays a composite character based on a number of criminals. “And then I read the script, I thought it was so well-written (and full) of explicit details that I didn’t remember hearing about in ’95. It was just shocking.“

The spark of inspiration for the movie came about a dozen years ago when Michael Bay read about the Sun Gym Gang in New Times Miami and was instantly intrigued by the weird saga of torture, extortion and murder.

“I remember reading this really detailed article and it laid out this bizarrely funny tale,” says Bay. “I also saw something about people who were never happy with what they had. I thought it was an odd commentary.”

Even though the Sun Gym Gang were capable of murder, they’re such pathetically inept criminals that they’re easy to underestimate.

“I want people to be conflicted,” says Bay. “I want to show the grey area. When you meet criminals, (you learn) that they don’t think they’re doing something morally bad … (With these guys), it’s bizarre how they could have just kidnapped someone, taken all his money, and then had a loving wedding the next week.

“They’re people, too, but it’s just this bizarre tale. This movie is different because you’re really going into the criminals’ mind.”

Johnson believes the sympathy you feel for the bumbling Sun Gym Gang diminishes as the movie goes along and the action takes darker and more sinister twists.

“I think it’s smart story telling from Michael Bay’s perspective because in the beginning you want to feel a sense of empathy and (you want to) go on a journey with these guys,” says Johnson. “They’re kind of likable guys in the beginning in this weird, bizarre way but at the end of the movie, all that gets thrown out the window and you’re happy and satisfied that they all get punished.” (Lugo and Doorbal were convicted of murder and are now on death row.)

Even though Bay discovered the story behind “Pain & Gain” in 2001 and talked to Johnson as far back as 2004, the director wasn’t in a position to get the movie made immediately. Instead, Bay went off and filmed “Pearl Harbor” and a trio of “Transformers” movies.

Last year, Bay negotiated with Paramount to direct “Pain & Gain” before beginning “Transformers 4.” The filmmaker agreed to keep the budget low ($26 million) and helped convince Wahlberg and Johnson to cut their salaries.

“I talked to Dwayne about this eight years ago and he read the script eight years ago,” says Bay. “A lot of actors were interested and then it just came together in a snap. I prepped it in two months and we put this dream cast together in two weeks. It’s almost like we want to do a sequel because these three guys are so great together, but you can’t do that.”

While Megan Fox enjoyed a notoriously tempestuous relationship with Bay during the making of “Transformers,” Johnson can’t say enough good things about the action maven. The set was so relaxed, claims the actor, that Bay encouraged the actors to riff with each other instead of strictly following the script.

“Michael gave us a platform to improv because there was a lot of trust with us,” says Johnson. “So we had a lot of fun improving. The great thing about working with Michael is that not only is he incredibly efficient, he is right there operating the camera and looking at you, and shouting things (like), ‘that’s funny, do it again.”

Bay, for his part, enjoyed the experience of shooting a movie on a tiny budget.

“What a relief,” he says. “Working with actors with no drama. No young whipper-snappers but great actors. It was just a dream. Me with a camera, actors acting, one explosion, no visual effects. It was fun. It was a low-budget movie, but it was good to be constrained in that box.”

Both Wahlberg and Johnson did a lot of prep work for their roles. Wahlberg gained 40 lbs. by eating as many as 10 meals a day, and pumped up his physique with hard-core workouts.

As for Johnson, he hit the gym and then the drugstore.

“I put on probably about 10, 15 pounds,” he says. “I was in the groove anyway because I was training and just came off of ‘G.I. Joe.’ But this particular look was different. Aside from the psychological prep, I used a lot of baby oil (on my muscles) and that smelled good.”